jamsessionein
New member
It\'s invariably the case that the new ork Spearhead makes me immediately drop whatever else I\'m working on in favor of some new, impulsive ideas. Anyone who has seen the way I work knows I have no problems jumping from one project to another!
So, when it came to playing with the new Ork Trukk sprue, I couldn\'t help myself. I\'ve started putting this bad boy together, and it is an awesome kit - you could blindfold yourself and still put together an impressive looking vehicle with all the parts that come on it. Still, despite all the impressive parts, there\'s still an element of standarization in the design possibilites. You can swap front plates around, change which side the driver is on, that sort of thing with relative ease, but you still end up with a fairly similar (though awesome) design.
I, of course, never leave well enough alone. It\'s my job to tinker on things that don\'t need tinkering with! I wasn\'t going to be happy just assembling the new trukk kit - I needed to do some converting to make it unique. I sat down and eyeballed the kit for a while and decided on a few simple changes, the first and foremost of which would be to replace the back two tires on either side with treads for a \'halftrack\' appearance that I think is rather orky.
I dug through my bits and decided that the tracks off a rhino weren\'t going to cut it this time - too thin, and the tires on the new kit are beefy, so they need something similar to match. I found the answer in a Tamiya Track and Wheel Kit that my local hobby store carried. This set is a must for anyone looking to spruce up some ork vehicles - I even used them on my Battlewagon scratchbuild.
I\'ve blabbed enough - I\'ll get to some of the pictures.
Here is a look at the trukk-so-far. There\'s a lot of extra stuff yet to add, but it should give you an idea of what I\'m going for with this. I actually have a couple of parts from the old trukk kits that I\'m trying to mix and match in - the tires that I save from this project will go towards turning the old trukk chassis, which are smaller, into buggies. The lighter grey plate between the driver\'s area and the crew is one of the old trukk kit parts. Once I figure out a nice glyph or icon to put on that plate\'s center, I think it\'ll look a lot better.
Here\'s the vehicle from the sides:
That last picture shows the underside of the vehicle, and the Legos I used to build it! Why Lego, you ask? It just so happens that they are one of the easiest ways to control the spacing and positioning of the trakk wheels, making it a lot simpler to get the treads to line up properly. One of the biggest problems I had with my Battlewagon was making the treads sit evenly with eachother - this is my solution to that dilemma.
Obviously, the legos will be covered up and properly concealed once I\'m done. There\'s also the issue of the trakks themselves - they look somewhat \'empty\' or \'bare\' right now, but I have plans to armor the tread assemblies so that only the bottom half of the wheels and treads are going to be visible. I might also put some more worky bits between the two wheels, depending on what I find as I sift through my bits boxes.
The weapons on the trukk haven\'t been decided yet. Same goes for the wargear - part of me wants to put a wrecking ball and boarding planks on this, but I\'m not sure what I like yet. Whatever I add will probably be magnetized and removable, in any case.
There\'s still also the issue of headlights, which I hope to add with LEDs once I figure out where I want to put them and the switch to control them. I can hide the batteries pretty easily underneath the body of the trukk bed between the tracks - I can probably put the switch under there, too, actually.
More to come when I have time!
So, when it came to playing with the new Ork Trukk sprue, I couldn\'t help myself. I\'ve started putting this bad boy together, and it is an awesome kit - you could blindfold yourself and still put together an impressive looking vehicle with all the parts that come on it. Still, despite all the impressive parts, there\'s still an element of standarization in the design possibilites. You can swap front plates around, change which side the driver is on, that sort of thing with relative ease, but you still end up with a fairly similar (though awesome) design.
I, of course, never leave well enough alone. It\'s my job to tinker on things that don\'t need tinkering with! I wasn\'t going to be happy just assembling the new trukk kit - I needed to do some converting to make it unique. I sat down and eyeballed the kit for a while and decided on a few simple changes, the first and foremost of which would be to replace the back two tires on either side with treads for a \'halftrack\' appearance that I think is rather orky.
I dug through my bits and decided that the tracks off a rhino weren\'t going to cut it this time - too thin, and the tires on the new kit are beefy, so they need something similar to match. I found the answer in a Tamiya Track and Wheel Kit that my local hobby store carried. This set is a must for anyone looking to spruce up some ork vehicles - I even used them on my Battlewagon scratchbuild.
I\'ve blabbed enough - I\'ll get to some of the pictures.
Here is a look at the trukk-so-far. There\'s a lot of extra stuff yet to add, but it should give you an idea of what I\'m going for with this. I actually have a couple of parts from the old trukk kits that I\'m trying to mix and match in - the tires that I save from this project will go towards turning the old trukk chassis, which are smaller, into buggies. The lighter grey plate between the driver\'s area and the crew is one of the old trukk kit parts. Once I figure out a nice glyph or icon to put on that plate\'s center, I think it\'ll look a lot better.
Here\'s the vehicle from the sides:
That last picture shows the underside of the vehicle, and the Legos I used to build it! Why Lego, you ask? It just so happens that they are one of the easiest ways to control the spacing and positioning of the trakk wheels, making it a lot simpler to get the treads to line up properly. One of the biggest problems I had with my Battlewagon was making the treads sit evenly with eachother - this is my solution to that dilemma.
Obviously, the legos will be covered up and properly concealed once I\'m done. There\'s also the issue of the trakks themselves - they look somewhat \'empty\' or \'bare\' right now, but I have plans to armor the tread assemblies so that only the bottom half of the wheels and treads are going to be visible. I might also put some more worky bits between the two wheels, depending on what I find as I sift through my bits boxes.
The weapons on the trukk haven\'t been decided yet. Same goes for the wargear - part of me wants to put a wrecking ball and boarding planks on this, but I\'m not sure what I like yet. Whatever I add will probably be magnetized and removable, in any case.
There\'s still also the issue of headlights, which I hope to add with LEDs once I figure out where I want to put them and the switch to control them. I can hide the batteries pretty easily underneath the body of the trukk bed between the tracks - I can probably put the switch under there, too, actually.
More to come when I have time!
